On his rides, when he met the ragged, threadbare people who lived among the hills, they saluted him and looked upon him almost with a sense of ownership. Was he not one of their Lafayettes who had been fighting and dying gallantly for hundreds of years? As for him, his friendly, boyish eyes looked a little deeper through their rags into their sterling peasant hearts than either he or they realized. In the old manor-house his day-dreams were all of "riding over the world in search of reputation," he tells us; a reputation to be won by doing gallant deeds. "You ask me," we read in his _Memoirs_, "at what time I felt the earliest longings for glory and liberty. I cannot recall anything earlier than my enthusiasm for tales of heroism. At the age of eight my heart beat fast at thought of a hyena which had done some damage and made even more noise in the neighborhood. The hope of meeting that beast animated all my excursions." Had the encounter taken place, it might have been thrilling in the extreme. It might even have deprived history of a bright page; for it was nothing less than hunger which drove such beasts out of the woods in winter to make raids upon lonely farms--even to terrify villagers at the very gates of Chavaniac. [Pg 9]II EDUCATING A MARQUIS The first period of Gilbert's life came to an end when he was eleven years old. His mother was by no means ignorant of the ways of the world and she had powerful relatives at court. She realized how much they could do to advance her boy's career by speaking an occasional word in his behalf; and also how much truth there is in the old saying "Out of sight, out of mind." They might easily forget all about her and her boy if they remained hidden in the provinces. So they went up to Paris together, and she had herself presented at court and took up her residence in the French capital, while Gilbert became a student at the Collège Du Plessis, a favorite school for sons of French noblemen. His mother's uncle, the Comte de la Rivière, entered his name upon the army lists as member of a regiment of Black Mousquetaires, to secure him the benefit of early promotion. He was enrolled, too, among the pages of Marie Leszczynska, the Polish wife of King Louis XV, but his duties, as page and soldier, were merely nominal. He does not say a word about [Pg 10]being page in his _Memoirs_. Of the regiment he merely says that it served to get him excused from classes when there was to be a parade.